Leicester city council have hired ‘ethical hackers’ to help them improve their cyber security.

Over the past 18 months, 11 council staff have had their computers infected, which caused localised disruption to their desktops.

The council have decided to employ two IT auditors as part of their cyber resilience programme in order to improve online security and prevent widespread disruption.

These new IT experts are ‘ethical security testers’ who will be able to ‘ethically hack’ Leicester council’s computer network so that vulnerabilities can be located.

‘This allows us to protect our information and do business online with citizens securely and safely,’ a spokesperson for the council said.

‘This also helps to ensure that the council has a better understanding of the controls in place to prepare for, protect from, detect and respond to cyber-attacks including practising how we would manage the consequences of a cyber security incident.’